A luxury yacht linked to allegations that $4.5 billion was looted from Malaysia's state investment fund 1MDB is being handed over to the FBI, which is probing the scandal, Indonesian police said today.
US and Indonesian authorities last week searched the Cayman Island-registered Equanimity, reportedly worth some $250 million, which was moored off the Indonesian tourist island of Bali.
"(The handing over) is in the process of being done," national police senior detective Daniel Silitonga told AFP.
The US Justice Department alleges in civil lawsuits that $4.5 billion was stolen from 1MDB -- set up by Prime Minister Najib Razak -- in a campaign of fraud and money-laundering. Najib and the fund deny any wrongdoing.
The suits list $1.7 billion in assets allegedly bought with the stolen funds, which US officials are seeking to recover.
Those assets include the 300-foot (90-metre) yacht which US officials said was purchased by Malaysian financier known as Jho Low, an unofficial adviser to ...

Indonesia hands over 1MDB-linked luxury yacht to FBI: police

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Eleven Asia-Pacific nations today are to sign a slimmed-down trade pact to lower tariffs just as US President Donald Trump seeks to raise them after withdrawing from the deal last year.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would have represented 40 percent of the global economy and nearly one-quarter of its trade, was left for dead after Trump pulled out to pursue his "America First" agenda before the TPP could take effect.
But the revamped deal, now known as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), is still a significant achievement that sends a message of openness, its supporters said ahead of the signing ceremony in Santiago, Chile.
The pact will include Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam, representing together 13.5 percent of global gross domestic product.
The 11 states form a market of 500 million people, greater than that of the European Union's single market.
"While taxes .

Without US, 11 Asia-Pacific states to sign trade deal

Tiger Woods is drawing inspiration from fellow veteran Phil Mickelson's win in Mexico last weekend as he plots the latest stage of his comeback this week ahead of next month's Masters.
The 42-year-old former world number one will tee off in the PGA Tour's Valspar Championship on Thursday hoping to get more rounds under his belt heading into Augusta in three weeks' time.
Woods has endured mixed results since returning to the tour this season, finishing tied for 23rd at Torrey Pines in January before missing the cut at Riviera in Los Angeles last month.
He followed that up with a 12th-place finish at the Honda Classic and is playing the Valspar at Tampa, Florida this week in an attempt to hone his game before the Masters.
Woods missed all of 2016 and most of 2017 because of debilitating back trouble that culiminated in spinal fusion surgery last April.
He said the 47-year-old Mickelson's victory at the WGC Championship in Mexico on Sunday encouraged him to believe he could still add to .

Tiger inspired by Mickelson, eyes Masters challenge

Australia vice-captain David Warner says he will always stick up for his family after claiming a "vile and disgusting" remark about his wife by South Africa's Quinton de Kock led to their ugly altercation.
Both players were punished Wednesday for the bust-up during the opening Test in Durban, with Warner fined 75 percent of his match fee and De Kock 25 percent.
They are free to play the second Test starting Friday in Port Elizabeth, although Warner was also given three demerit points, meaning he will be banned if he gets one more within the next year.
Warner admitted he let his emotions take over after confronting the Proteas wicketkeeper/batsman as the players walked up a narrow staircase to the dressing rooms during the tea interval on Sunday.
Footage was captured on CCTV and leaked, showing the Australian being restrained by his team-mates.
Warner said he was used to taking flak from fans and opposition players, but claimed De Kock's remark crossed a line.
"The other day I was ...

Warner hits out at 'vile, disgusting' wife jibe

British detectives were scrambling today to uncover who poisoned a Russian former double-agent and his daughter with a nerve agent, as doctors battled to save their lives and that of a policeman who also fell ill after coming to their aid.
Sergei Skripal, 66, who moved to Britain in a 2010 spy swap, is in a critical condition in hospital along with his daughter Yulia after they collapsed on a bench outside a shopping centre on Sunday.
The brazen poisoning  in the southwestern English city of Salisbury is already being linked with Russia by British politicians and the media, sparking an angry response in Moscow.
Yesterday, British police confirmed for the first time that a nerve agent was used and that their probe was now an attempted murder investigation.
"Sadly, in addition, a police officer, who was one of the first to attend the scene is now also in a serious condition in hospital," Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner Mark Rowley told reporters.
Scientific tests by ...

British police hunt culprit in Russian ex-spy's poisoning

Serena Williams is through taking baby steps on the comeback trail after the birth of her daughter Alexis Olympia in September.
The 23-time Grand Slam singles winner is ramping up her return this week by playing in Indian Wells, her first WTA Tour event since she won the 2017 Australian Open.
After a couple of exhibitions and a Davis Cup doubles match, Williams is eager to hit with the big guns as she opens her campaign on Thursday night against Zarina Diyas.
"I'm ready to just jump in and get started and see what happens," the 36-year-old American told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. "Obviously I'm going to have a few hiccups, I would imagine, and I'm ready for that."
Earlier this week she played one tiebreaker in an exhibition tournament in New York. In February she played a doubles rubber for the US Fed Cup team, and took part in another exhibition in Abu Dhabi in late December.
Indian Wells features a star-studded women's field in a tournament that looks wide open.
Many of ..

Serena Williams eager to hit with big guns again

The United States has circulated a draft UN Security Council resolution that threatens to impose an arms embargo on South Sudan and to take "all appropriate measures" against those blocking peace efforts.
The draft text obtained by AFP demands an end to four years of fighting in South Sudan and urges the warring sides to uphold three ceasefire deals agreed since July 2016.
The council "expresses its intention to consider all appropriate measures, including an arms embargo, to disable the parties' ability to procure weapons and ammunition so that the peace process can proceed," said the draft resolution.
Diplomats said Russia and China are likely to raise objections to the draft, which takes a tough line on punishing those who refuse to end the war, now in its fifth year.
Negotiations are to begin Thursday on the proposed measure ahead of a vote at the council scheduled for March 15.
The African Union has backed sanctions as a way to pressure the sides to end the war in South Sudan but 

US pushes UN to consider arms embargo on South Sudan

Injured Black Cap Ross Taylor said today he was desperate to play in the one-day series decider against England, as pundits declared his unbeaten 181 the greatest ever limited-overs innings by a Kiwi batsman.
Taylor overcame cramps and a severe thigh strain to bludgeon New Zealand to victory with a career-best performance in the fourth ODI in Hamilton yesterday.
Grimacing with pain after every shot and limping between the wickets, he levelled the series 2-2 to set up a winner-takes-all clash in Christchurch on Saturday.
Coach Mike Hesson was reluctant to risk Taylor in the crunch match if there was risk of long-term injury, and has called in rookie Mark Chapman as cover.
"We need to know the extent of it and whether it's one of those injuries that can get worse, or whether you can grin and bear it, we're just not sure yet," Hesson told reporters.
Taylor said he was keen to play and would be icing his injured thigh and resting with the intention of taking the field even if not fully ...

'Ross the Boss' desperate to play decider against England

Millions of tourists are drawn to Bali's palm-fringed scenery and rich marine life, but a British diver has released stark footage highlighting a growing problem in its famously crystal-clear waters: plastic rubbish.
An underwater video shot by Rich Horner this week showing a sea overflowing with plastic and other garbage at Manta Point, a well-known diving site near Bali's main island, has already been viewed about a million times.
"The ocean currents brought us in a lovely gift of a slick of jellyfish, plankton, leaves, branches, fronds, sticks, etc.... Oh, and some plastic," the diver wrote on his Facebook account.
Plastics of all kinds -- including bottles, cups and straws -- were floating around him, he said.
"Plastic bags, more plastic bags, plastic, plastic, so much plastic!"
Often dubbed a paradise on earth, the Indonesian holiday island has become an embarrassing poster child for the country's trash crisis.
The problem has grown so bad that officials in Bali last year ...

Diver films rubbish wasteland in Bali waters

Japanese authorities today ordered two cryptocurrency exchanges to suspend operations as part of a clampdown following a massive hack that saw thieves steal hundreds of millions of dollars in virtual currency.
The Financial Services Agency (FSA) said in a statement it had ordered FSHO and Bit Station, exchanges based in Yokohama and Nagoya, to temporarily halt their operations for a month from today.
The agency alleged that FSHO "does not have a proper system to monitor trading and has not given training to its employees," while an employee of Bit Station "diverted digital currency deposited by clients for his personal use."
Authorities also ordered five other exchanges, including Coincheck, to improve their business practices.
Coincheck was already slapped with sanctions in January following the hack.
The hack of Coincheck -- resulting in the disappearance of NEM cryptocurrency worth $530 million --  was one of the largest of its kind, and prompted authorities to search the firm's ...

Japan punishes crypto exchanges after hack

Japan's prime minister warned today that North Korea's offer of denuclearisation talks with the United States could be a ploy to play for time and stressed the need for Pyongyang to take "concrete" steps.
In his first public comments since an apparent diplomatic breakthrough between North and South Korea, Shinzo Abe said that talking for the sake of talking was "meaningless."
"I've repeatedly said that we have to create a situation of putting maximum pressure on North Korea so that the North wants to have talks with us," Abe told MPs.
"However... it is true that the North has in the past earned time to develop nuclear capabilities and missiles" during periods of negotiation, Abe cautioned.
"Talks for the sake of talks are meaningless and we should never loosen sanctions just because North Korea is open to talks," added the hawkish prime minister.
In the latest chapter of a rapid Olympics-driven rapprochement on the Korean peninsula, Pyongyang has said it would consider giving up its ..

Japan PM urges caution on N.Korea talks, wants 'concrete steps'

A bus veered off course and plunged 100 meters down a gorge in Peru's southeastern Andean region of Ayacucho, killing at least 10 passengers and injuring more than 20, police said.
The bus, which had more than 50 people on board, tumbled off the road in the early hours of the morning on the Interoceanic Highway, which connects Peru with Brazil.
"We have so far recorded 10 deaths after a bus fell into a 100 metre (325 feet) gorge," said Jose Ramirez, an police official in Puquio, the closest town to where the accident took place.
The bus was traveling from the capital Lima to Querobamba, Sucre province, which is located over 3,500 metres above sea level.
Over 20 injured passengers were taken to hospital in Puquio and Huanta, another nearby town.
There were two other deadly bus crashes in Peru in January and February, which killed 97 people in total.

Bus veers off road in Peru killing at least 10

The UN envoy for the Democratic Republic of Congo has warned of a risk of violence as the country heads toward elections in December.
DR Congo is in the grip of a "shocking" humanitarian crisis with 4.5 million people in need of aid, the highest number in Africa, Leila Zerrougui told the Security Council.
President Joseph Kabila agreed to free political prisoners and respect the rights of the opposition under a political deal reached in 2016, but Zerrougui said the government had fallen short of those commitments.
"A failure to generate confidence in the full and faithful implementation of the December 31 agreement will only serve to heighten political tensions, and to fuel the risks of inciting violence for political ends," said Zerrougui.
After much delay, authorities in the vast mineral-rich African country set a date of December 23 for elections that are expected to pave the way to a historic transfer of power.
But Kabila, who took over from his father Laurent after he was ...

UN envoy warns of risk of violence in DR Congo

US President Donald Trump denies allegations he had an affair with a porn star more than a decade ago and paid for her silence, the White House said.
"The president has denied the allegations against him," press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters.
"The president has addressed these directly and made very well clear that none of these allegations are true," Sanders said. "Anything beyond that I would refer you to the president's outside counsel."
The lawyer for porn star Stormy Daniels has said that she had a sexual relationship with Trump in 2006 and 2007 and wants to nullify a "hush agreement" so the public can decide "who's telling the truth.

Trump denies porn star affair allegation: White House

Reporters Without Borders has said a Cameroonian journalist was stripped, slapped and forced in to a dog's kennel at the house of a former minister.
The journalist visited the home of ex-transport minister Alain Edgard Mebe Ngo'o on Saturday, the day after the politician left the top job.
"After reporting to a guard at the entrance of the residence, the journalist was arrested by the minister's police service, then undressed, violently slapped, put inside a cage for dogs and sprayed with water," the NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said.
Accused of espionage, he was interrogated for several hours, the statement added.
The reporter for the Cameroon daily newspaper Le Jour had been covering President Paul Biya's cabinet reshuffle.
Editor Haman Mana said on Monday that the newspaper reserved the right to take legal action.
The National Union of Journalists of Cameroon "condemned with the utmost energy this heinous act".
The country is ranked 130 out of 180 in RSF's World Press Freedom 

Cameroon newsman 'put in dog kennel' at ex-minister's home

Casualties linked to militancy and violence have dropped in Pakistan for the third consecutive year, with 21 per cent fewer fatalities in 2017 than in the previous year, a security think-tank says.
Some 2,057 people were killed and 2,074 wounded for a total of 4,131 casualties over the year, according to a report by the Islamabad-based Centre for Research and Security Studies seen Wednesday.
That continued the trend from 2016, in which 2,613 people lost their lives due to violence and 1,714 were injured. In 2015, 4,647 people were killed and 1,927 injured, the group's figures show.
The dramatic improvement in security came after the army launched an operation in June 2014 to wipe out militant bases in the northwestern tribal areas and end a bloody insurgency that has cost thousands of civilian lives since 2004.
It has involved a series of military offensives as well as some attempts to block the militants' sources of funding. Those efforts were in the spotlight again when a global ...

Pakistan violence drops for third year running: report

Several people were killed in a helicopter crash in the mountains of Russia's North Caucasus region of Chechnya on Wednesday, officials said.
"A helicopter of the border guard service crashed. There are dead," the Chechen government said in a statement, adding that officials were verifying the number of casualties.
The accident occurred at high altitude during a routine flight as the Mi-8 helicopter was preparing to land, investigators said in a separate statement.
In a message on social media, Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov sent his "deep condolences" to the families of the victims.
When reached by AFP, a spokesman for military investigators, Sergei Zhukov, said investigators had yet to reach the scene of the crash.
Over the past several years, Chechnya, a mainly Muslim region riven by two separatist wars since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, has been rebuilt thanks to generous subsidies from the federal budget.
While the violence has largely died down, Chechnya and other ...

Several killed in Chechnya helicopter crash

The lawyer for porn star Stormy Daniels today said that she had a sexual relationship with Donald Trump and wants to nullify a "hush agreement" so the public can decide "who's telling the truth."
Los Angeles lawyer Michael Avenatti filed a lawsuit on behalf of Daniels yesterday seeking to toss out the confidential settlement she signed just days before the November 2016 election.
Avenatti made the rounds of the morning talk shows today to explain the legal move by Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.
Asked on NBC's "Today" show if Daniels had a sexual relationship with Trump, Avenatti immediately replied "Yes."
"She believes it's important that the public learn the truth about what happened," he said. "I think it's time for her to tell her story and for the public to decide who's telling the truth."
The White House has dodged questions about whether allegations of the affair are true, claiming the matter was dealt with during the campaign.
"We've addressed our feelings on ..

Porn star's lawyer says she had sexual relationship with Trump

The US trade deficit swelled in January to its largest level in nearly a decade as oil prices rose and the world's biggest economy sold fewer aircraft, government data showed today.
The news comes amid White House furor over trade policy, with President Donald Trump's top economic advisor Gary Cohn announcing his resignation late Tuesday after losing a bruising internal battle over whether to impose punishing tariffs on steel and aluminum.
Cohn's resignation and the fear Trump will press ahead with restraints on trade have roiled global markets in recent days. Wall Street opened lower this morning but major indices were struggling to turn positive toward 1600 GMT.
In the first month of the year, the US trade gap rose five per cent over an upward-revised December to USD 56.6 billion, its highest level since October of 2008, overshooting analyst expectations for only a two per cent increase, according to the Commerce Department. This put January up 16.2 per cent over January of 2017, ...

US trade deficit hits nine-year high on falling exports

China led a group of 18 World Trade Organisation members today that urged US President Donald Trump to scrap his planned tariffs on steel and aluminium.
The pleas from a broad coalition of members including the European Union, Japan, Canada and Russia came at the WTO's General Council meeting, according to a trade official with direct knowledge of the meeting.
The Chinese representative, who spoke first, said Trump's intention to justify the tariffs on national security grounds would pose a systemic threat to the rules-based global trading system safeguarded by the 164-member WTO.
Canada meanwhile expressed concern that "the United States might be opening a Pandora's Box that we would not be able to close," according to the official.
Fears of an all-out trade war have risen since Trump announced the planned tariffs -- 25 per cent on steel and 10 per cent on aluminium -- last week.
The world's major economies have vowed to defend themselves, including through legal action at the ...

China leads WTO nations in protest over Trump tariffs

Hundreds of flights were cancelled today to and from New York airports as the region braced itself for heavy snowfall.
Some 470 flights -- nearly 37 per cent of the total scheduled -- arriving and departing from John F Kennedy International Airport had already been canceled by 9:00 am (1400 GMT), along with 550, or 44 percent, of flights from New Jersey's Newark airport and 485, or 42 per cent, from La Guardia, which operates primarily domestic flights, according to the FlightAware flight tracking site.
The Port Authority agency that oversees the three airports -- which has come under sharp criticism for the chaos that followed early January's snowstorm -- said each airport had stocked folding beds, blankets, diapers and baby formula as a precautionary measure.
New York expected between six and 10 inches of snowfall today, with up to 20 inches predicted in more rural areas of New York state, New Jersey and Connecticut.
The National Weather Service warned of "heavy wet snow, coastal ...

AFP

AFP

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